298 - Regional Spotlight Session. The Challenges of Public Sociology in Contested Areas: The Case of Abortion

Session Submission Type: Paper Session

Abstract

The session will discuss the particular challenges that arise for those committed to public sociology when they research an issue that is deeply contested, when activists on both sides of the issue closely monitor this research, and when the researchers themselves often have strong partisan views about the issue in question.

What are the tensions between sustaining one’s sociological identity and yet being responsive to the various “stakeholders” of a specific issue? Using the issue of abortion as a case in point, three sociologists located in a highly progressive medical school (UCSF), itself located in the liberal city of San Francisco—factors that have facilitated a critical mass of abortion researchers in one instistution-- will discuss their research on various aspects of the abortion conflict in the United States and how they meet these challenges in their own work.

Sub Unit

• Regional Spotlight

Session Organizer

• Carole E. Joffe, University of California-San Francisco

Presider

• Jennifer A. Reich, University of Colorado-Denver

Presenters

• Carole E. Joffe, University of California-San Francisco

• Lori Freedman, University of California-San Francisco

• Katrina E. Kimport, University of California-San Francisco